Question of the Day

Did illegal voters swing any congressional races?

Man sentenced in school shooting

FLINT, Mich. The Michigan man convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old girl by her first-grade classmate was sentenced yesterday to two to 15 years in prison.Jamelle James, 20, left a loaded .32-caliber handgun under a blanket at home where a 6-year-old boy found it. He took it to school and fatally wounded Kayla Rolland on Feb. 29, according to police.James pleaded no contest to the involuntary manslaughter charge last month. Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Judith Fullerton sentenced James to the prison term yesterday.James was staying with the 6-year-old boy, his 8-year-old brother, and the boys' uncle.

African monkey declared extinct

NEW YORK A type of large West African monkey is extinct, making it the first primate to vanish in the 20th century, scientists said.Anthropologists for the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York failed to find the monkey, a Miss Waldron's red colobus, in a six-year series of forest surveys in Ghana and Ivory Coast that ended in 1999.The determination was not a surprise to wildlife experts. The last confirmed sighting of a Miss Waldron's red colobus was more than 20 years ago in the rain forest of Ghana. It was listed as endangered in 1988.

Jetliner quits takeoff at JFK

NEW YORK A TWA jetliner aborted takeoff and skidded to a halt at John F. Kennedy International Airport yesterday after the pilot noticed wind rushing into the cockpit.The Boeing 767, bound for St. Louis with 233 persons aboard, blew six of its 10 tires as it came to a halt on the runway.No injuries were reported.Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac said investigators found that a window on the co-pilot's side had been left unlatched, possibly during maintenance.

FBI investigating TRW fraud accusations

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into charges that military-contracting giant TRW Inc. committed fraud and sought to cover it up in the national missile defense program, an FBI letter made public yesterday showed.As many as 53 House Democrats had urged the FBI to investigate the allegations, which have been used by critics to assail as unworkable the "hit-to-kill" technology central to the missile shield.The FBI's action was disclosed in a July 31 letter from Thomas Kubic, deputy assistant director of the criminal investigative division, to Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, whose office released it yesterday.

Teen-age knee injuries increase arthritis risk

You may think you rebounded fine from that knee injury playing hoops or soccer at age 16, but it could haunt you by your 40s or 50s.Scientists are proving what some sufferers have long suspected: A single knee injury as a teen-ager or young adult can triple the risk of arthritis in that knee by middle age.Now researchers are seeking ways to prevent injured knees from deteriorating.

Quarter of foreign born have college degrees

Foreign-born residents of the United States are about as likely as other Americans to be college graduates but the ones who don't have degrees tend to be less educated than the rest of the population.The United States had 26.1 million foreign-born residents last year.The bureau said 25.4 percent had a bachelor's degree or higher. That compares with 25.2 percent of native-born Americans with degrees."The proportion with a bachelor's degree or higher ranged from 45 percent among migrants from Asia to 11 percent among those from Latin America," said Angela Brittingham, the report's author.

Government lacking on computer security

The House Government Reform subcommittee on technology gave the federal government yesterday a barely passing grade of D-minus for computer security.

Lapses at all 24 departments and agencies reviewed "place a broad array of federal operations and assets at risk of fraud, misuse and disruption," said the General Accounting Office. Based on the GAO audit and self-assessment by the agencies, the House panel handed out an F to more than one in four.

Receiving F's were Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Justice, Labor, and Interior as well as the Small Business Administration and Office of Personnel Management. The Defense Department earned a D-plus.

Senator renews threat to block nominations

A Republican senator renewed his campaign yesterday to stop Senate votes on White House judicial nominations, saying President Clinton had violated an agreement on recess appointments.

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, accused the president of undermining a spirit of cooperation when he made 17 temporary appointments while the Senate was not in session during August.